Marathon response: Another unofficial account

Sunday

Apr 6, 2014 at 12:16 PMApr 6, 2014 at 2:53 PM

As I point out in an editorial today, a report released this week by researchers connected to Harvard’s Kennedy School underlines the need for an independent, comprehensive investigation of the response to the Marathon bombings.

The report doesn’t pretend to be a formal investigation. The authors interviewed people involved in the response for the purpose of gleaning lessons that could be shared with officials in other jurisdictions. They don’t name their sources or go into great detail in their narrative. In that way, it’s no more credible than the journalistic accounts of what happened that week.

But the report and the journalistic accounts agree on the broad narrative: Lots of things went well, but there were problems in Watertown, where it appears communications, coordination and discipline broke down, with near disastrous results.

There’s a reference to a report on Watertown supposedly being done by Middlesex DA Marian Ryan’s office, but no sign of the report. It is incomprehensible – and troubling – that nobody in government shows the slightest interest in learning from what went down that week.

Rick Holmes

As I point out in an editorial today, a report released this week by researchers connected to Harvard’s Kennedy School underlines the need for an independent, comprehensive investigation of the response to the Marathon bombings.

The report doesn’t pretend to be a formal investigation. The authors interviewed people involved in the response for the purpose of gleaning lessons that could be shared with officials in other jurisdictions. They don’t name their sources or go into great detail in their narrative. In that way, it’s no more credible than the journalistic accounts of what happened that week.

But the report and the journalistic accounts agree on the broad narrative: Lots of things went well, but there were problems in Watertown, where it appears communications, coordination and discipline broke down, with near disastrous results.

There’s a reference to a report on Watertown supposedly being done by Middlesex DA Marian Ryan’s office, but no sign of the report. It is incomprehensible – and troubling – that nobody in government shows the slightest interest in learning from what went down that week.

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